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When A Sequel Is SO Bad It Ruins The Original
Sep 11, 2025
In today's movie landscape, when a mid-budget comedy does well, it's only natural studios decide to rush a sequel to capitalize on it's popularity. Though in the case of movies like Ted 2, the sequel completely destroys the legacy of the original. Seth Macfarlane's Ted 2 changed audiences perspective on the first one, but it's not the first time this has happened. So how exactly do sequels like Ted 2 make it to theaters, only to disappoint audiences?
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I look like Snuggle's accountant
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Come on, it's not that bad. John, I look like something you give your kid when you tell him grandma died
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Ted was a crude, crass comedy, and it had a lot of heart
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and ended on this surprisingly sincere and romantic note. John, Laurie, and Ted lived happily ever after
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having discovered at last that all they really needed was each other
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Except the end was a lie. They didn't live happily ever after, and they didn't really need each other at all
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At least, if you go by what happened in the movie's wildly misguided and widely disliked sequel
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But if you choose to pretend the latter movie never happened, we can't really blame you
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Because Dead 2 is a sequel so bad, it ruins the original
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I've been led to understand that tricks are exclusively for children. Well, I mean, they say tricks are for kids in the commercials
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Is that enforced by law? In 2012, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane brought his often clever, always controversial
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style of comedy to the big screen in the form of the talking teddy bear comedy, Ted
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MacFarlane's directorial debut doubled down on everything the comedian's audience expected from him, while telling a story more compelling than most expected
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Ted follows the life of John Bennett, who starts out as a lonely 80s kid immersed in
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typical 80s things, so when he receives a teddy bear from his parents as a Christmas gift
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he names the bear Ted, wishes him to life, and the two become instant BFFs
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It's really alive, look! Merry Christmas, everybody! Jesus, it's f***! Flash forward a few decades and we rejoin the adult John, who is played by Mark Wahlberg
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and a foul-mouthed alcoholic Ted, who basically sounds like Peter Griffin. Oh, come on. I do not sound that much like Peter Griffin
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John and Ted are still Thunder buddies but John is also dating the beautiful and successful Laurie Collins played by Mila Kunis Laurie genuinely loves John but he seems generally incapable of delivering anything even remotely resembling the adult relationship she wants
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Reading between the thematic lines, it becomes quickly apparent that Ted is the personification
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of John's nostalgia for the movies, media, and toys he took refuge in during his lonely childhood
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His inability to separate from those things as he grew up has kept him from emotionally maturing
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and so he's virtually indistinguishable from his younger self. It's a surprisingly deep and relevant take for a movie that comes from the creator of the mostly juvenile family guy
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and it gave Ted an instant poignancy. By the end of the movie, Ted and Laurie, representing John's connection to his past and his future, have made their peace
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John finds room in his life for both in a balance that's healthier for himself, his relationship, and even for Ted
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who winds up falling in love as well. You know, Sam, there's only one way to end the perfect day
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What's that? Flash jump. Yeah! Audiences and critics loved the movie, and it became the highest-grossing comedy of 2012
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Ted himself was an instant star, even getting to make an appearance with Wahlberg on stage at the 85th Academy Awards
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A sequel seemed like an easy slam dunk, so everyone was pretty psyched when it was announced
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But making sequels to comedies can be tricky. Comedies tend to have happy endings
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which resolve the central conflict faced by the characters. That means to create a conflict capable of sustaining another movie
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the filmmakers have to find a way to undo the happiness of the original resolution
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For audiences, this can feel like a bit of a gut punch, which is not always the best way to start a second film
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And this is the route Ted 2 would ultimately take. McFarlane initially wanted to go with a simple road trip story
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that would find John and Ted smuggling a truck full of weed across the country
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But the release of the similarly premised We're the Millers forced him to abandon that idea
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He went back to the drawing board and came up with a new story that had a starkly different premise
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than the first Ted, but it also didn't have room for Mila Kunis Laurie So the sequel came out of the gate in the most depressing way possible Oh being back in that church again And everything seemed like it was going to be so perfect
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Yeah, well, you're not the first guy to marry the wrong girl. Essentially nullifying everything that made the original clever and emotionally effective
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John and Laurie have divorced after just six months, and John describes the relationship as
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a waste of his time. Look, I wasted six years of my life with the wrong girl and I got burned
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I'm not going to make that same mistake again. The movie then quickly abandons all the
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themes of the original by immediately reverting John to the pot-smoking loser who spends all his
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time hanging out with a teddy bear while portraying it as a positive step in his life
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The sequel also replaces the simple, relatable story of a childish man learning to grow up with
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an unlikely plot based on the life of the enslaved man Dred Scott, as well as the fictional character
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Kunta Kinte from Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots. In Ted 2, Ted is legally declared property under
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the law and must fight in court for his civil rights. 150 years ago, a slave by the name of Dred Scott sued to prove that he was a person and
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not a piece of property. He lost. And as history has shown us, that wasn't justice
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McFarlane, no doubt, had good intentions. But the fact that Ted is actually not a human being makes the metaphor awkward at best
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and arguably even a little offensive. He's not my property. He's a person
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He's way more of a person than lots of other people. I mean, f***ing Steven Tyler? What the f*** is that? Some kind of weird soccer mom-looking
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goonie monster? But even putting all that to the side, which is fair given that the first Ted included
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more than a few controversial jokes, Ted 2 simply lacked the heart and sincerity that
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helped balance out all the crass humor in the first one. The often mean-spirited sequel
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just lazily rehashed jokes from the first movie, as well as from McFarlane's various
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cartoon shows offering little to anyone but his most hardcore fans. As to whether there would be a third Ted in 2015 McFarlane said Ted 2 does as well as the first one it means people want to see more of these characters If that happens then there would likely be a Ted 3
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Coasting on the excitement and goodwill generated by the first Ted, Ted 2 was a box office success
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But it didn't do anything like the business the first movie did, and both audiences and critics were dissatisfied
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Long story short, no Ted 3 emerged. I just did a line with a dude in the men's room, and I bet you can't even spot him
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Even after decades have passed, McFarlane's animated shows, Family Guy and American Dad
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remain in production. And his live-action sci-fi adventure show, The Orville, also continues to chug its way through space
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But despite its phenomenal success, Ted has mostly been forgotten. Unlike these other McFarlane creations
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there was no Ted comic book series or spinoffs like The Cleveland Show. And while Peter Griffin has had his face plastered on just about everything
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Ted merchandise is exceedingly rare to spot in the wild. That being said, bringing defunct properties back from the dead
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as he once did for Family Guy, is kind of Seth MacFarlane's specialty. And as such, in 2021, the Peacock streaming service announced it had struck a deal with
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MacFarlane for a Ted prequel series that would follow young John and Ted
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As of this writing, that series still hasn't been released, but it has wrapped
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and all indications are that it won't feature any of the movie's stars other than MacFarlane himself
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So it's a bit of a step down from a major feature film starring an A-list actor
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Like Zoolander and Dumb and Dumber, Ted might have come to be thought of as one of the great contemporary comedies
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if its sequel hadn't ruined its legacy. Instead, Ted 2 stands as a perfect example
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of how when a comedic feature film is a financial and commercial success
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it should maybe be left as just that. Because the truth is, comedies are often products of their time
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and trying to replicate their appeal after pop culture has moved on is usually just a recipe for mediocrity
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So the moral of the story is that, just like John had learned from Ted, comedy filmmakers need to realize that
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eventually, you just might have to let go and move on
#Comedy Films
#Film & TV Industry
#Spoofs & Satire